


The Broken Contract: A Record of the Aftermath

by deskclutter



Category: The Sandman
Genre: Gen, Siblings, deathfic always, violence is love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-22
Updated: 2010-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:50:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter





	The Broken Contract: A Record of the Aftermath

  
An antique clock ticks softly on the mantelpiece. Scattered around it in haphazard groups are sixteen buttons of varying colours; a silver snuffbox; two white handkerchiefs, one knotted, one crumpled; a little wreath of bare, intertwined twigs; a pile of melted wax that was once a handsome candle. This is a scene characteristic of the entire house. Locked boxes clutter the floor of one room: a plain wooden one in the corner that shifts colour as the day wears on; a large chest with the scent of roses blooming along its grain lies below it, and by the windowsill a carved dragon arranges itself in a snoring heap along the length of the box while its mate anxiously peeps its head from the width where it has been hiding. A pyramid of bright sided Rubik's cubes sits between a chalked circle with marbles rolled both in and out of it and the higgledy piggledy tower of old newspapers on the table. In the living room, keys with no locks clank against each other as the chains in the old grandfather clock swing, and the clock itself chimes the thirteenth hour.

The air is thick with secrets and mysteries; meaningful glances nest themselves there, alongside the mysterious smiles. The sound of of hand clapping hangs for a moment as though startled, then dives away into its cardboard shoebox. Minor magics scuttle in the corners--the vague sense of a pink mist, a wet blob of dull gold--and flee quickly out of sight, while a large gargoyle slumbers in the basement and a growing one seats itself on the front steps of the house.

Despite the overwhelming crowded nature of the house, the everything within the house knows there is an emptiness pervading it at the same time. Grief shares space with the secret-heavy air and the faint bewilderment of outrage has sent the younger gargoyle outside. A hollowness spreads itself between the cluttered gaps, between the locked boxes and the sleeping gargoyle, winding around the stumpy legs of the table and the key chains in the grandfather clock.

A long road meanders outside the door. Footsteps place themselves along it with the experience of one who knows exactly enough not to wander off the path. The gargoyle on the steps looks up and squawks with joy. "Huh-hello, uh, Irving," says the man. The door bursts open. "Cuh-Cain!"

"What," pronounces his brother precisely. "have I told you, you twitter-pated, lily-livered example of an imbecilic cretin, about. A gargoyle's. Name."

"I-it's, uh, good to be huh-home..." He dies with a smile on his face.

_Ah,_ sighs the house, and the emptiness dissipates.


End file.
